Artboyz Palette

My Father stopped by tonight to see his Grandson...

Life seems to happen, whether you're ready or not...

I didn't want to use a flash and ruin their moment, so this one's pretty vague. It's a young couple boning their brains out on the rooftop across the street. Her pants are down about a foot and he seems to be doing her through his open fly. Some things just need to be documented...

We went to Steve and Deb's place again this year to celebrate the 4th. Their place overlooks Centennial Olympic Park which, for my money, puts on the best fireworks show in the Atlanta area. This time though, I was far more entertained by the rapt enjoyment spread across my son's face.

The thing about Tampa is that generally speaking, it's a complete fucking bore. The singular exception seems to be Ybor City. Luckily, that's where our hotel was. It's a remarkably diverse area chock full of bars and restaurants to suit every taste. I was walking down 7th street on Saturday night enjoying the diversity of the crowds. Young, old, black, white, gay, straight, uptight, cool. It was Pride weekend, and even the douchebag megaphone shrieking street preachers seemed to fit in. Just another slice of life. I ended up spending lots of time and cash in an excellent spot called "Boneyard". It was pretty much the Highlander of Ybor City. Here's a shot of the bar;

Jeff Swanagen - Rest easy my friend...

I woke up this morning in Tampa eager to head off to my meeting with the Florida Aquarium management. Chris and I had determined that the Tampa market was probably not going to be worth our while. We were averaging about $200 a day in sales which is about a third of what we bring in at the Georgia Aquarium. The difference seems to be that while the Atlanta location attracts droves of world travelers and conventioneers, the Tampa location seems to attract mostly repeat locals looking for a cheap way to keep the kids entertained. We came very close to deciding not to pursue it, but finally changed our mind. We hooked up with some very talented local caricaturists who have been working at Busch Gardens. These poor kids have been slaving away ten hours a day, in brutal heat for a measly 23% of their sales! One of them told me that he'd recently worked a ten hour Saturday shift and only sold $80. And he only gets 23%?!? We let three of them come in and take a weekday shift. They were so stunned at getting to work in air conditioned bliss for a mere six hours and getting to take home half of their sales. From their perspective, 50% of a $200 day is a gold mine! So we figured "What the hell". 50% to the artist, 20% to the aquarium and the rest in our coffers for the rest of the summer. That's not bad considering that we get the added bonus of being able to provide a good opportunity for these kids. 
Anyway, I was heading off to finalize the agreement with the aquarium when Maria sent me a text telling me that Jeff Swanagen had passed away. Jeff was the director of the Georgia Aquarium when we first set up shop there. While guiding the aquarium's development he also became a valued member of the Downtown Neighborhood Association and a very good friend to all of us in the neighborhood. He and his wife Suzy became very good friends with us in particular and were very helpful guides in our decision to have a child. We shared many memorable dinners in each others homes. Once, after a good bit of wine, Jeff drunkenly danced with my stuffed Kermit. I'll always fondly associate that image with him.
Last year Jeff and Suzy left Atlanta when Jeff's mentor Jack Hannah asked him to go and head up the Colombus, Ohio Zoo. We all wished them well and sent them off on their happy way. Most of us kept in touch on Facebook and were happy to hear that Jeff's son was to be married. (this coming weekend actually) Last month, Jeff and Suzy came to town for a visit and made time to come over for dinner. Over drinks, I mentioned to Jeff that Chris and I were interested in possibly expanding to other aquariums and zoos. He pulls out his Blackberry and shoots off e-mails to friends of his that he thinks we should talk to and before we know it, we're negotiating to open up shop in Tampa.  
So, it was with a profound sense of irony and sadness that I sat down Florida Aquarium management to finalize our deal. Present of mind that the sweet generous man who made the opportunity possible is no longer with us.

So the Bear and I have been in Tampa for more than a week in an effort to determine whether or not a satellite booth in the Florida Aquarium is going to be a worthwhile endeavor. So far it's been a bit of a disappointment. Our booth at the Georgia Aquarium does so phenomenally well, we thought that Tampa would be a no-brainer. Turns out that the market is radically different. Here in Ga. we get a very diverse and often international crowd. In Tampa, they get mostly locals who keep coming back to let their kids play in the water park while they hang at the bar. We were doing about a third of the sales we expected. We're not giving up on the idea yet though. We found some very hungry local caricaturists to put in the chair while we take a few days off. It may turn out to be worthwhile for all concerned if we just provide a venue for them while taking a percentage for ourselves. We'll see. We're back in the ATL now, but I'm going back down Thursday night to oversee the weekend before making a final decision. In the meantime, here are some thoughts about Tampa in general;
Tampa is a truly boring place to be unless you're in Ybor City. Ybor seems to be the only really jumping area. Tons of bars, clubs and restaurants. Cool people, even if they are all very young. Speaking of which; the highlight of my week was the improbably hot little pixie girl who made a serious run at me. Even if I wasn't married, she was still waaaaayyyyy too young for me. Still, that moment was exactly the jolt that my currently frail ego needed.
Here's a couple of pics;

This giant stingray statue looms outside the aquarium...


And these are the actual rays waiting inside...


I took a day to drive down to Marco Island and visit my biological father. This is
my step-sister's 9 month old daughter Katie. Truly adorable. Even so, why the fuck
do people pierce a baby's ears? Are we trying to get her a date?!?


Here's me with the old man. I think everyone can see where I'm headed. 
Even if he never did learn the whole "black is slimming" rule.

Well,  we're headed down to Tampa for the big experiment. We'll be there for two weeks in an effort to determine whether our caricature operation is as good a fit for them as it has been for the Ga. Aquarium. Apparently there are several out of work artists in the area who'd love the work, so we have high hopes for the venue. We're staying in an area of Tampa called Ybor City. I spent a night there once and had a pretty good time. As far as I can tell, it's the only interesting area of Tampa.  It's funny, but not so long ago, I'd have been jazzed to get away for a while. Now all I can think about is how I'm going to survive two weeks without holding my son.

Since I'm going to be out of town for my first Father's Day, Maria took me out for a "family day" in honor of the occasion. No big deal, we just basically spent the whole day together, which almost never happens. It was fun. We had lunch at Engine 11 on North Avenue and the staff had an excellent time playing with CJ while we ate. Here's the boy gettin' his flirt on with Sheena;

We finally got a paying commission on one of our Shag style pieces. The couple with their dog and two cats in Paris...

HOW CUTE IS THIS KID?!?

So, I've been absent for a while because on top of dealing with work and the baby, I've been wrapped up in helping to plan this year's Atlanta Downtown Festival. This was our eighth year and I've been in charge of the artist market since we started the thing. Over the years, the festival has grown nicely and was beginning to really become something we could be proud of. Since we started jurying the market and awarding cash prizes, we began to attract some real talent. We finally caught a break with weather-wise the last few years and were feeling pretty good about ourselves. 
This year, because of the state of the economy, we knew we couldn't do any fundraising. None of the local corporations that have treated us so generously in the past have any money to throw away on something as silly as our little festival, so it was decided that we'd dip into our reserves and put on a smaller version of our usual show. I argued that maybe we should take a year off and concentrate on ramping up for a big return in 2010. The prevailing opinion was that we'd risk "losing the thread" and never come back. I have to agree that the argument makes sense. So I went into "let's just survive this year mode".
We decided to drop the loft tour for this year and add a competitive scavenger hunt. I think this was a clever idea and hope to see it grow as an integral part of the festival. We'll bring back the loft tour of course, as soon as the housing market turns around. We dropped Walton Street and only blocked off Broad Street. The problem with that was that, while in past years I've had as many as 100 artists in the market, I was now reduced to a maximum of 30. I ended up with 22 artists, half of whom were jewelers. Fucking "string-a-bead" jewelers! Drives me nuts. We did have a few really talented people in the market, but not many of our regulars. Most of our top notch artists from previous years have either dropped off of the circuit entirely, or they found more lucrative shows out of state to appear in. Oh well....
In the end it didn't matter because the fucking rain hammered down on us relentlessly all weekend. We did our best, but you can't fight the weather. We ended up shutting everything down at 2 o'clock Sunday afternoon. Here are some pics...

The beer truck crew...


This pic pretty much sums up the weekend...


And this one...


Our 3rd place winner, Laura Wellem. Very creative mixed media work...


Our 2nd place winner, Doug Barker. Gorgeous hand crafted wood furniture...


And our 1st place winner, Lorri Y. Kelly. Wonderful paintings...


Giving out prizes for the scavenger hunt...


C.J. made a friend at the after party...

As an all American red blooded sci-fi-comic book geek, I of course am a Trek fan. Regarding the original series though, while I respect it, I wasn't necessarily crazy about it. I'm sure that I've seen every episode at some point over the course of my life.I loved some of the movies and I love the characters, but I'm not one of those guys who can quote episode titles and endless arcane trivia like the characters in Free Enterprise. I liked the cheesy 60's design style, but always thought the ship looked stupid. As with most sci-fi, I find it useful to focus more on the characters and their relationship with each other than to get too hung up on the pseudo-scientific aspects. Not that I don't appreciate all that shit, but eventually some dumb assed writer will push it too far and ruin it for me.
The short of it is, that I never gave much of a shit about the original series.
So when I heard about the new Trek movie, I was interested, but had no real expectations. That turned out to be a good thing because I love being surprised.
It was OUTSTANDING! I've seen it twice in the past three days and want to see it again! They actually managed to make that stupid ship design look badass. Using the original design elements from the show, they managed to make everything look totally freaking cool. Phasers, tricorders, uniforms, etc... 
The cast was excellent too. I know everyone wants to make a big deal out of Zachary Quinto's Spock, but let's face it, physically speaking, he's the obvious choice. In the end, I didn't mind that most of the actors don't really look like the originals. They were all great. Especially the guy playing Bones. He was spot-fucking-on! In fact, he was the only one of the cast who made an unmistakeable effort to play the classic character hard core. 
It's been a loooong time since I was so jazzed about a sci-fi movie that I wanted to go see it again. I'm stoked to see the sequels! 

My system almost feels like my own again. Got most of my software reinstalled and managed to restore most of my preferences and settings. I'm really not looking forward to having to recreate all of my Photoshop shortcuts. What a pain. Right now we're running a scan on the old drive to see if any of the lost files might be recovered. Fingers crossed.

My hard drive crashed yesterday. I had a new one installed and have spent the day trying to rebuild my system. I did have most of my stuff backed up, lost many irreplaceable recent work files. I hate having to redo all of my settings! FUCK!!!

http://saportareport.com/blog/?cat=5

The Bear and I are in Destin, Florida tonight for a business meeting tomorrow. The question is whether or not we're going to open a satellite location at an entertainment venue here. So far we're dubious, but we're keeping an open mind.

While home this past weekend, we got together for dinner with several of my best friends from High School. I see some of these guys fairly frequently and stay in light touch with all of them, but this is the first time so many of us have been in the same room in over a decade. It's amazing to me how easy it is to fall into such easy rapport with such old friends. I'm very lucky.


From left to right; Kirk Lax, Keith Timmons, Cindy Bogstad, Me, Tom Harrison, Mary Beth Harrison, Jim Bailey, Steve Taylor, Kristen Taylor, Steve Parnell, Maria, Jim Bogstad, Kelly Lax 


These two guys were my closest white friends in high school. I love it that they both showed up.

I don't usually enjoy doing festivals, but the Flowertown Festival happens to be hosted in my hometown of Summerville, SC. Dave Washburn has been doing caricatures at the fest for many years, and when he learned that it was my old stomping grounds, he invited me to join him. I've gone home to do the fest with Dave for several years now. It's a great excuse to get home to see family and old friends. Here are a few pics of Dave and I working...

I was just downloading some Diana Krall. Seriously, if I ever meet this woman, I'm going to do everything within my power to get into her pants. The wife will just have to understand...